Weinstock Among the Dying

In Michael Blumenthal s extraordinary and powerful first novel, Martin Weinstock finds himself much like Dante, having lost his way in mid-life, trapped in the to-him-deathlike corridors of academic life and aborted loves. Adopted at birth by his biological aunt and uncle, then prevented from mourning the death of his adopted mother, Weinstock attempts to navigate the twin burdens of aborted mourning and confused parentage toward a vision of life that is at once good-natured and redeeming. Unable to reconcile the seriousness and self-importance of academic life at Harvard with his own sense of life s mixed texture of humor and sadness, Martin jointly confronts both Harvard s institutional self-absorption and his own wide array of human foibles. En route, he learns as he searches for genuine love and internal well-being that not only humor and seriousness but life and death can coexist and may, if fact, rely on one another for their redemption. Weinstock Among the Dying delves into one man s attempt to recover from the griefs of his childhood and to enter into a life-giving adulthood of fatherhood and mature love, In it, Michael Blumenthal creates a moving portrait of the human struggle for psychological growth, as well as a witty satire of life at the top of the academic world.